My standard is to test with very specific songs that have hard to hear nuances in them. If I can’t hear those, the gear sucks. If I can, I’m happy. Don’t care about anything else sound wise, and I have been able to ball on a budget while still maintaining that standard.
As you said, it’s my ears that are the bottleneck, so I go with what works in that regard. There are shitty headphones that can’t let me hear what I’m capable of hearing though.
My standard is to test with very specific songs that have hard to hear nuances in them. If I can’t hear those, the gear sucks. If I can, I’m happy. Don’t care about anything else sound wise, and I have been able to ball on a budget while still maintaining that standard.
As you said, it’s my ears that are the bottleneck, so I go with what works in that regard. There are shitty headphones that can’t let me hear what I’m capable of hearing though.